Vermont Sued by Grocery Group to Block GMO Food Label Law

June 13 (Bloomberg) -- Vermont was sued by the packaged
food industry in the first of what may be a series of lawsuits
to block labeling requirements for products containing
genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

Vermont last month became the first state in the U.S. to
make GMO labeling mandatory, following failed attempts to pass
similar laws in California and Washington. The Grocery
Manufacturers Association and three other groups, in a lawsuit
filed yesterday in federal court in Rutland, Vermont, said the
law violates free speech rights and conflicts with federal
findings that GMOs are safe.

Half of U.S. consumers are concerned about the safety of
genetically modified foods, according to research by NPD Group
Inc. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has rejected calls to
mandate special labeling for GMOs, while allowing food makers to
voluntarily say on packaging whether foods don’t contain GMOs,
as long as those statements are truthful.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association, based in Washington,
represents at least 300 food, beverage and consumer products
companies, including Kraft Foods Group Inc., General Mills Inc.
and Mondelez International Inc.

Nicholas Fereday, a Rabobank International analyst in New
York, said in a note issued in May that he expects GMO labeling
requirements to “continue to gain momentum and prominence.”

Connecticut, Maine

While Vermont’s population is small -- about 627,000 -- its
law could prompt other states to follow. Connecticut and Maine
have passed GMO labeling laws that are triggered when certain
numbers of other states enact such requirements.

Vermont Attorney General William H. Sorrell said in a phone
interview today that his office had been preparing for the legal
challenge and will defend the law, which he described as being
akin to requirements that calories, salt and sugar content be
displayed on labels.

“We’re very early in what’s very likely to be a long
fight,” he said.

Set to take effect in July 2016, the Vermont law would
impose a fine of $1,000 for violations. The labeling requirement
wouldn’t apply to many food categories, including meat, milk,
restaurant fare and raw agricultural commodities that aren’t
grown with genetically modified seed.

The law would also ban food makers from advertising
products as “natural” when they contain GMO ingredients.

Manufacturers’ Argument

“The state is compelling manufacturers to convey messages
they do not want to convey, and prohibiting manufacturers from
distributing their products in terms of their choosing, without
anything close to a sufficient justification,” the trade groups
said in their complaint yesterday.

To comply with the law, food makers may have “no choice
but to revise the labels for all of their products, no matter
where they might be sold in the United States,” the groups
said.

The U.S. has been “at the forefront” of developing
genetically engineered crops, according to the complaint.

Almost all soybeans and corn grown in the U.S. in 2013 came
from genetically engineered crops, which may have been altered
to withstand herbicides, repel pests or display other helpful
characteristics, according to the complaint.

“If a person lives in the United States for any period of
time and does not restrict all of her food purchases to organic
food, she is almost certainly consuming ingredients derived from
GE plants on a daily basis,” according to the complaint.

The case is Grocery Manufacturers Association v. Sorrell,
5:14-cv-00117, U.S. District Court, District of Vermont
(Rutland).